Monday, April 10, 2006

I'm not a concert afficiando by any stretch. But I enjoy them. I've probably been to 15-20 in my life. Saturday night's Nickel Creek concert at the Capital Arts Building in Bowling Green, Ky was a pretty good one.First things first, they opened the concert in a way I didn't expect. It seems most groups open their shows with an upbeat number to get the crowd into the show. Nickel Creek opened with the tender "Why Should the Fire Die?" Great harmonies, gentle melodies and warm lyrics. Not at all what I'd expect.So I was a bit concerned that this concert would be a more serious event than I anticipated. Well, it was anything but. If you're not familiar with the group its a trio of Sean and Sarah Watkins (guitar and violin, respectively) and Chris Thile on mandolin. None of the three is over 25 I believe and all are upper echelon musicians, especially Thile who is so talented he actually played a piece by Bach on the mandolin for his individual encore piece. And he played it fast and flawless.NC stuck to their own stuff for the most part but did work in Short People by Randy Newman into a medley with The Fox (my personal favorite NC song) and an acoustic version of Toxic by Britney Spears. Yep, Toxic. It was hilarious and actually sounded pretty good. Much better than Trailer Trash Barbie's version.I don't know if I've seen three more talented musicians on the same stage. They played for 2 hours and 15 minutes and I could have stayed longer. A great concert that did nothing but cement my admiration for a truly talented group of musicians. Check them out if you haven't before.